BLOOD MEMORY by E. J. Daniel
Available as an eBook at Barnes and Noble NOOK and Amazon KINDLE. The formatting on the eBooks looks great. Unfortunately, those formats can’t be copied and pasted here, so the following four chapters are from my manuscript. I hope you laugh.
First Four Chapters:
Part One: Blood Memory
Chapter One
MINDLESS TRICKS
Her Father's blood still ran in her veins. Not the actual blood. That was long gone. It was the Memory of the Blood. Carey would've been the first to be skeptical. She was trained in the medical arts.
She looked in the courtesy mirror of her Jeep and examined the zit on the end of her nose. No amount of concealer was concealing. SHIT. "I'm thirty-two. Give it up!" She snarled to her skin. If she didn't have to get so close to her clients, she wouldn't have worried about it. She'd have to glob on some of the Derma-Marvel she had in her desk at work. That's when she heard her Father's words, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
In actuality, her Daddy would've never applied that slogan to Carey. He always supported her in whatever her endeavor, and her college training was an expensive endeavor. Starting right after he died, Carey found herself using expressions only her father would've used. Maybe that, she theorized, was his way of continuing to assert himself and show he still had an interest in her life. (BUT THIS SAME SHIT DIDN'T HAPPEN TO HER WIDOWED MOTHER!)
A beater-car lurched out in front of her from a service station nearly grazing the right front fender of her new Cherokee. The old duffer driving was oblivious. His head barely poked above the steering wheel. In fact, if Carey had been behind him, her only evidence that the car wasn't on autopilot would've been a wisp of hair.
"GET DEATH OFF THE ROADS! YOU UNDERSHOT, UNDERSLUNG BASTARD!" Carey yelled. (Fortunately, the windows were up. You could get killed in Southern California for a lot less.) But there it was again: Daddy making himself known.
By the time Carey rolled into the blood bank, her blood pressure had returned to normal, and she was ready for work. She was the Big Cheese. The Top Banana. Well almost. In any event, she ran the joint. Carey was no longer a phlebotomist. Other employees did the blood-letting. She welcomed the donors and made everything run smoothly. She was their first impression of the place. "Gotta cover up Mount
St. Helens," she said to her nose, ignoring the fact that she was a very pretty lady.
Chapter Two
CRUNCH, SPLAT
The role of Trophy Wife of a Real Estate Tycoon was a heavy responsibility. Denise Treasure had suggested broadly to her husband, Wiff, that a Range Rover might be a safer vehicle than the Mercedes to cart around their tiny daughter. She actually had no data to support her theory and was, therefore, overruled. Even though all the other Trophy Wives were getting Range Rovers, Wiff's reasoning was that Denise would be more likely to be car-jacked if she was driving a SUV.
"That kind of vehicle is in great demand in Belize," he explained with not a small amount of condescension.
As soon as Wifford Quincy Treasure, III, left for work, Denise looked up Belize in the atlas. "Huh? A country in Central America. I guess the roads suck. Wiff was right once again."
At noon that same day, Denise took her car keys and loaded her toddler's stroller into the trunk. It was time to collect Tiffany from Montessori. Tiffany was only two and a half, and she was always exhausted from her stint at school.
Denise usually met the other Mothers on the beach bikepath, and they all went running with their snoozing toddlers tucked safely into their pricey three-wheeled-jogger-strollers.
Wiff expected his wife to maintain her hard body. Sometimes she yearned for a piece of the key-lime pie she recalled from her childhood in Fort Lauderdale when she never gained any weight.
Denise talked on her cell-phone to the caterers. (Wiff was throwing a bash to reel in new limited partners to his "Cliff's Edge Condominiums" which were perched precariously on the bluffs above PCH enjoying a fabulous view of the Pacific Ocean for as long as the unstable soil put up with them).
Denise was in charge of making the event as glitzy as possible. When the light changed to green, she was so absorbed in her telecom-menu-planning that she proceeded across the intersection without noticing a huge, very crappy truck that decided to do likewise (having matter-of-factly run the red light). Unfortunately, the truck broad sided her and whipped Denise's car into a 180 which then allowed another crappy truck to plow into her head on.
She lost consciousness when the airbag deployed and pushed the cell-phone into her head. Blood was everywhere. (Wiff had a great insurance policy, and the car, now totaled, could be replaced.)
The firemen extricated Denise with the 'jaws of life' and rushed her to the nearest ER. The need for Denise to make a decision between mushroom tartletts vs. deep-fried baby artichokes no longer existed. Wiff would be extremely disappointed.
Chapter Three
PATIENTS ARE A VIRTUE
Dr. Jack Douglas heard the ambulance before he saw it. The emergency vehicle reached the intersection and cruised through against the light with sirens full on and beacon flashing. Some cars actually pulled over and stopped. Most of the other drivers plowed along oblivious to the ambulance dodging and weaving around them.
Jack wondered how it felt to be in an ambulance with cars coming at you full tilt. "Inside that vehicle lies one of my guests," Jack thought not differentiating between the paramedics, the patient, and the occupants of the cars that nearly hit them.
Another guest. Another customer. Another patient. He would never run out of patients. "I'm running out of patience," he groaned. Two more blocks to the hospital.
He thought about the house he'd just rented at the beach. The waves slopped up to the base of the steps dulling the din on PCH. His living quarters were on the second floor with an unobstructed view of the Pacific. What the hell was he doing in L.A. traffic when he could be fishing? Not that he knew how to fish. He'd never learned as a boy, and he certainly didn't have time for it when he was in med school.
"I could fish. How complicated could it be?"
He pulled past the entrance to the ER and saw the paramedics unloading a gurney from the ambulance at the Emergency Room. He wondered if the gurney-person would eventually arrive at his doorstep at ICU. He'd know soon enough. The important thing was he still had time to chat up the nurses before the shit hit the fan.
Chapter Four
A STICKY SITUATION
The bridal boutique oozed the soft, cloying scent of gardenias while the surround sound system seeped Vivaldi's Four Seasons into the sub-consciousness of the brides-to-be: be happy, get married, buy, buy, buy.
Constance Taylor stepped into her ivory satin wedding gown with the assistance of Maria, a young Hispanic seamstress. Maria lifted the train and helped Constance onto the elevated dais. Constance did a little twirl and observed herself in the bank of mirrors.
"I've been planning this since I was a little kid. Mark and I shared the same playpen."
"Oh, that so nice. You marry best friend," Maria said.
Constance turned slowly to allow Maria, who knelt below the dais, to pin the hem to the correct length. The seamstress completed her task and stood up, a few pins protruded from her mouth.
"This most beautiful dress," Maria mumbled through the pin barrier.
"I think so, too. It's perfect."
"You like me take in waist a little?" the tiny woman suggested.
Constance grimaced and looked distracted. Her face turned ashen.
"Okay?" the seamstress fished for an answer.
"Yes, okay."
As the seamstress cinched the waist with a row of straight pins, Constance swayed and groaned. She grasped her side.
"I so sorry! I stick you?"
"Ohhhh! Ohhh God." Constance's response was to crumple on the platform without any regard for the disposition of the most expensive dress in the shop. "Help me! Help me!" Her weak pleas for assistance were smothered by the strains of Albinoni wafting through the shop.
Fear washed over Maria's face. Had she injured a very important customer? She didn't know whether to call 9-1-1 or just flee before the Migras shipped her ass back to El Salvador. She couldn't let that happen. What would become of her kids? She looked at the pathetic rich girl writhing on the dais. One little pin prick couldn't have done that. Could it? Maria rushed to unbutton the gown and ease it off the tortured creature. Then she called for help.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Maria had wrapped Constance in a terry robe and made her decent for her trip to the hospital. The emergency medics were totally uninterested in Maria's immigration status. A possible burst appendix and impending peritonitis took front and center. Maria picked up the wrinkled wedding gown and watched as Constance was loaded into the ambulance.
"Poor little thing. She plan this for all her life."
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